"I grew up thinking meat came from a can, not a cow...because that's all we could afford," Hee said. "That's what local people do. We make ends meet."

Employers with tipped employees can get a credit of 50 cents per hour starting in 2015 and 75 cents per hour in 2016 for those workers who earn $7 more per hour than the minimum wage.

"Hawaii's move to do that really sets it apart," Temple said. "For the vast majority of tipped workers, employers will have to pay the minimum wage."

There are seven states that have no tip credit, meaning that tipped workers can keep all of their wages and tips without having a tip credit taken out. But their laws have been on the books for decades, Temple said. Hawaii is the first state in recent history to enact a change to the tip credit that preserves the full minimum wage for the majority of workers, he said.